


And the sea, black;

by ginkyou



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Alternate Universe - Vikings, M/M, Rating May Change, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21619957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginkyou/pseuds/ginkyou
Summary: When Ben, sovereign lord over a sprawling mess of domains, meets Hux, a lowly slave, something about the boy strikes Ben as odd immediately. Could it be that there is more to this slave than what meets the eye?
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	And the sea, black;

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd as usual.  
> My first time writing something that's just history-inspired/ set in a generic "vaguely medieval" fantasy world instead of being explicitly historical! Exciting! This is also my first time publishing SW fic, oops.  
> Tags and warnings might change as series progresses - currently I'm planning one more chapter with explicit smut but who knows what the future holds.  
> Sorry for any typos or formatting errors, I'm uhh currently in the psych ward so I'm just doing my best ok pls don't b mean  
> Comments much appreciated!!

It had been three years since the war, and the great gates of Vébærn still lay in ruin. Iron had been scarce even before swords had clashed at Gulfjörður and in the halls of ancient Úllrstaðir, and it was doubly so now that the war had ended in a tense, anxious draw. There was hushed, nervous talk on the streets and in the stables of troop movements, of musterings, of conscription even.

Jarl Beornhard (Ben to his friends and family as well as to strangers with an acute death wish) had little to worry about. He was chief, propelled into early, righteous power by his own strength and ability. His people supported him. His meadows were green, his goats were fat, his rivers flowing. His estate stood on a rather mighty hill, overlooking the fields and farms below. If you looked East from the highest floor you could, on a fogless day, even spy the sea which roared incessantly less than an hours' ride away. This was not yet the time when people had settled on proper names for many places so depending on who you asked, the estate might have been called stands-upon-hill or light-upon-the-cliffs, or maybe even place-where-people-meet or town-where-my-cousin-got-really-drunk-once. Names depended very much on who was giving them, after all. Jarl Ben just called it Benshóf, for he was Ben and this was his hóf. It wasn't particularly beautiful but it was well fortified and had a wide stock of all sorts of food and drink. Which, in these days, mattered a whole lot more than beauty.

Ben himself was a fighter second to none. He had sailed much, had travelled far, had even lived beyond the sea, with many of the peoples of the East (the ones that drummed, the ones that drank, and reportedly even the ones that did both). He wasn't good at keeping his temper, but he made up for that flaw with just how good he was with the sword (and the rapier, and the dagger, and the knife, and if push came to shove he could even use a simple spoon).

And so, with all his wealth, and all his power, it was quite perplexing to Ben, that a simple slave boy had managed to take up so many of his waking hours' thoughts.

  
The slave himself was a mystery, albeit a refined one. He was Ben's age, maybe slightly older, maybe even slightly younger - the inevitable mud that covered every thrall hid any wrinkles and scars, letting Ben only guess at his age. He was quite pretty in a boyish way, as far as the dirt allowed to show. Jarl Ben had only seen him a few times in the past weeks; the boy must have arrived at Benshóf maybe a month before. The boy didn't stand out at first glance (his hair was red, but that wasn't too uncommon, it was short, but that was also not uncommon among slaves, and his skin was the same white as many of his compatriots).

Unlike what the stories told, slaves of course weren't all ugly simple-minded buffoons just like nobles weren't all elegant quick-witted beauties. There was good and bad in everybody, and in everybody's looks. Yet, Ben had come to know quite some time ago, there was a way to tell someone's standing with a simple glance - by looking at their hands. And this boy (or was he, after all, a man?) had not the work-hardened calloused hands of an average worker let alone of a thrall, a slave, but the delicate, smooth, soft hands of one of higher birth.

  
The boy had finished washing Ben's feet and and hurriedly packed up his tools, ready to leave as swiftly and silently as he had come. His hands, now free from the soot and grime they were once caked with, had turned out to really be just as pristine as Ben had thought. Some fresh burn marks and blisters here and there but nothing older than a few weeks, a month at most. The boy had already made it to the door when Ben finally spoke.

"What's your name, boy?" The boy stood still. The fingers of his left hand were on the door handle. His right hand gripped a small wooden tub filled with his tools (soap, towels, a pitcher full of hot water). He did not yet turn around, did not yet know whether this was just a quick, throw-away courtesy of a question or the start of a full-blown conversation. Ben could almost hear the questions running through the boy's mind. This had just been another quick errand, like one of hundreds of others he'd completed - so what was different now? Was he allowed to turn around? Expected to? Where should he look if he did? Was this going to be bad? Had he done something wrong?

"My name is Hux, Sir." Ben could see the way Hix's fingers shifted slightly against the door handle, unsure whether to apply more pressure - to leave the room - or whether to stay. Hux's heart was beating faster. Ben could feel it, and quite enjoyed it.

"Hux, huh? You're the one the stablemaster calls ánsetl, aren't you?" Hux's hand finally let go of the door. Ben watched him turn around, slowly and nervously, with a strange, twisted sense of pleasure.

"Yes, Sir."

"Why is that, Ánsetl Hux?"

"Sir, it is the place where I was… found. The hermitage. In your tongue, that is what such a place is called."

Ben had realized that he had no interest in the boy's name, let alone his etymology, before he'd even asked about it, but that didn't really matter. What he truly wanted was to know more about were this mysterious boy's origins. How could someone with such fine hands end up as a thrall? The possible answers were myriad - unpaid debts, lost wars, hostage situations gone wrong - but for a reason he couldn't quite understand the specifics of this thrall's story intrigued him. Maybe it was just because he was, all things considered, quite attractive.

"Interesting, interesting…," Ben murmled, more as a way to pass the time than anything. He paused for a moment, pondering. Hux glanced helplessly towards the door, then at the tools in his hands, then back at Ben.

"Sir, is there anything else-"

"Where do you come from, boy the stablemaster calls ánsetl?" When that prompted no response from Hux apart from a helpless sigh, he added more firmly: "Boy, tell me about where you come from or I'll have it seen to personally that you are flogged thrice more than what is usual for every single infraction you have committed while in my household, be they past or present." That seemed to do the trick.

"Sir! I- I was born in Vargstongue Sir, then moved to Sollgrund, and then I… I ended up at the hermitage, Sir, of which I already told you true and truthfully."

"Vargstongue, huh, boy?" Maybe he'd been a criminal, punished with having to live the rest of his days as a slave?

"Yes Sir."

"That's quite a ways from here." Maybe his parents had made a promise they weren't able to keep, and he had been their collateral?

"Yes Sir."

Several days' ride, and even more on ship I'd reckon." Maybe he was just another unlucky runaway, captured by slavers.

"Yes Sir."

"So were you captured at the hermitage, Hux?" No answer - just a sharp breath, as if he'd had something to say but then had decided against it. A second time, then, with an implicit threat in his voice. "Ánsetl Hux."

"The hermitage, Sir," Hux said, slowly, deliberately, "was where I was posted. I was…" he paused, as if unsure whether to continue. Maybe trying to decide which story to tell, or how much of it.

"Go on," said Ben, more command than question.

"Sir, I was- I am… of a kingdom in the west, beyond the mountains."

Ben furrowed his brows and leaned forward slightly in his chair.

"The hermitage - me and my instructors were there for my training." He wasn't done speaking yet, Ben could see that. The boy's- the man's- no, Hux's - mouth hung slightly open, his eyes scanning from side to side as if fighting with himself over how much to reveal at this point. And then, as if to end that line of thought and to bring himself back down to the reality he was in, he concluded, simply: "Sir."

"Interesting," Ben said, and this time he really meant it. West, beyond the mountains, laid many more lands in various states of flux - some were kingdoms one day then principalities the next, some may have ceased existing before he'd ever even heard of them. Ben knew very little about all of them as they'd never really been of any interest for him. They had not been involved in the war three years ago, that one had been fought only against the country's nearest neighbor, and either way they were safely protected from any warring going on around Ben's lands by that big, ancient mountain range. For all he knew there might be thousands of kingdoms and fiefdoms and whatever have you doing Gods knew what beyond those snow-tipped peaks.

"And now," Ben said, ceremoniously and with a hint of haughtiness, "you are here, and my thrall."

"Yes, Sir," Hux replied, somewhat dejectedly.

"Interesting," said Ben once more. Hux looked like he simultaneously had more to say and already wished he'd said less. "You can go." Hux looked disappointed and relieved at the same time. Then, after a brief moment, Ben added: "Come back tomorrow."

"Come back, Sir?" The boy's eyes (no, he must be a man, must be as old as Ben, he could see it now, this was a man, indeed, one who might even be able to, what, yield a sword? Ride a horse?) were wide with questions he knew he wasn't allowed to ask (and questions he knew he was going to be asked), but Ben could already feel a burning red sense of an understanding of an entirely different kind gnawing at Hux's mind, could see Hux's cheeks flush ever so lightly. He really, really was pretty, wasn't he? And yes, Ben could even feel something wet and hot twist ominously in Hux's stomach, but that was neither here nor there for now.

"Here." Hux's hands tightened around the small tub. Ben's hand had pointed - vaguely enough for plausible deniability, strongly enough to leave no room for questions - to the bed. "After dusk." If Hux was shaking, Ben didn't see it.

"Yes Sir."

**Author's Note:**

> A small appendix of names and related matters, most of which will probably never even come up in the actual fic and which do not clear up anything except to establish that I am, in fact, That Bitch:  
> Ben Organa aka Kylo Ren = Beornhard "Ben" Jóhannsson aka Kylo Ren (if his Kylo Ren persona ever comes up I'll explain why he's got that name and yes it will absolutely include the _riddarar Ren_ )  
> Ben rules over a strongly Viking-inspired country. Their customs, language, weapons etc. are all influenced by medieval Scandinavia but most strongly by medieval Iceland just because that's my fave.
> 
> Armitage Hux = Ánsetl Hux (Armitage comes from hermitage, which is a car. 14th century French loanword so I used ánsetl instead as it is the contemporary Old English word for a hermitage. Hux is, thankfully, an Old English word).  
> Hux is currently slated to come from a more continental European/ southern Anglo-Saxon style place but I'm not sure on the details just yet.
> 
> I'm still working on the following two and they might never even be named in the fic but just for posterity -  
> Han Solo = Jóhann "Han(ni)" einfari (loner, rogue)  
> Leia Organa = born as Leocadia Organicius. Now officially named Leofgyð. Hates the name, so goes by Leia wherever she can.
> 
> Also now that everybody has stopped reading i just wanna say that I don't know if I want to keep this simply historical fantasy or, like, fantasy fantasy with like magic and stuff (magic beyond just the Force). Hmmmmm if u have an opinion about this lemme know thank u byeeeee lol


End file.
